Monday 19 August 2013 01.54 EDT
First published on Monday 19 August 2013 01.48 EDT

A new opinion poll suggests Labor’s electoral position is slightly less dire than other recent surveys have suggested – although it still suggests a clear Coalition victory.

The Guardian Lonergan poll, taken over the weekend, shows the Coalition on 44% of the primary vote, ahead of Labor on 35%, well under the 38% of the primary vote it achieved in 2010.

But Lonergan calculates the Coalition ahead 52% to 48% on two-party preferred terms – similar to the position it has been in for most of the campaign – largely because of preference flows from a 12% Greens vote.

The result is slightly less bad for Labor than the Newspoll conducted for the Australian on the weekend, which showed Labor's primary vote at 34%, compared with the Coalition on 47% and the Greens on just 9%. On a two-party-preferred basis, that put the Coalition ahead 54% to Labor’s 46%.

Asked about the polls while campaigning in northern New South Wales on Monday, Kevin Rudd said "I'm a fighter. I will continue to fight and I will continue to fight for Australian families … We will fight this to the conclusion of the campaign."

He blamed Labor’s difficulties on Coalition attacks and negative campaigning, and said this was also the rationale for Labor’s new attack ads, launched Sunday night.

“If you were in the firing line for two weeks of wall to wall negative attacks upon yourself, you know something, it would probably have an impact on what people thought about you – now we are returning fire,” he said.

But according to the Lonergan poll – based on automated calls to 1,676 voters – Labor is trailing disastrously in Rudd’s home state of Queensland, where the party needs to win seats from the Coalition to have any chance of victory.

It found Labor’s primary vote in Queensland was 34% compared with the Coalition’s 50%. In NSW, Labor’s primary vote trailed 33% to 47% and in Victoria 32% to 44%.

It also found the Coalition’s lead was bigger with men (46% of the primary vote compared with 35% for Labor) than women (42% to 34%).

The only age bracket in which Labor was in the lead was 18- to 24-year-olds, where it attracted 42% of the primary vote compared with 37% for the Coalition. The Coalition was slightly ahead among 25- to 34-year-olds (39% to 34%) but strongly ahead among 35- to 49-year-olds (44% to 33%) 50 to 64-year-olds (44% to 38%) and the over-65s, where the Coalition leads 53% to Labor’s 30%.

According to Newspoll, Rudd’s personal popularity is also waning. Rudd still edges Abbott as preferred prime minister – 43% to 41% – but his support is dwindling, equating to a loss of three points from the previous poll and a rise in Abbott's rating of four points, the closest Abbott has ever been to Rudd on the question of preferred prime minister.

Rudd's voter satisfaction rating also dropped four points to 35%, while his dissatisfaction rating rose six points to 54%, his worst ever personal support.

Abbott's satisfaction rating, meanwhile, is on the up, with a rise of three percentage points to 41%, up seven points during the election campaign, while his dissatisfaction rating was 51%, down one point and a five-point fall overall during the campaign.